By May 2020, it was common knowledge in the medical community that early ventilator use was hurting, rather than helping, COVID-19 patients, and that less invasive measures were in fact very effective in assisting recoveries.[271] A New York City study found a 97.2% mortality rate among those over age 65 who received mechanical ventilation.[272] The WHO’s “early action” ventilator guidance, citing Chinese journal articles, had killed countless thousands of patients across the world.
